🥛 The most obvious alpha 🧠

GM. This is Milk Road Degen, the crypto newsletter that gets you closer to presale alpha than a VC’s intern with Excel privileges.

Here’s what we got for you today:

✍️ How to get rich on pre-sales
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Prices as of 8:00 AM ET.

HOW TO GET RICH ON PRE-SALES 💰

Disclaimer: I’m choosing to ignore the last 72 hours in crypto for the purpose of writing an article that contains a generous amount of silent alpha. It’s evergreen knowledge so you can follow these directives now, later, or whenever you think it makes sense.

They say the best alpha in crypto is hiding in plain sight and I think that may have happened on a recent episode of the Degen podcast.

My dear old pal BCheque explained that he’s most bullish on private markets as a sector in crypto, because that’s “where the bulk of the profits are”.

He was referencing a sharp article from top KOL Cobie dating back to early 2024, which paints a clear picture of how modern presales stack up against ICOs.

In summary:

Most upside is captured privately: tokens launch with inflated valuations and almost no room for retail to win.
VCs and insiders dominate closed rounds, creating “phantom pricing” before tokens even trade.
Today’s markets are rigged compared to the $ETH ICO days - where everyone had fair access.
Cobie’s advice: Opt out of these launches, wait for real price discovery, and buy mispriced assets later.

But here’s the nuance: BCheque wasn’t saying to avoid them - he was saying to simply try and be the investor. He’s had great success in the last few years by getting in at the source of these launches, where the risk is high but the rewards are even higher.

And in the last year, platforms that let the public invest in a similar way have exploded. Yes, in some cases the raises might come way after seed rounds with true investors, but as retail folks this is the best we can do. And there are some gems in there!

Some public presales have filled within seconds - like $PUMP and $XPL, each raising hundreds of millions in minutes and printing 2x-10x returns (if you sold).

Others, like Ethos, have quietly raised millions with barely a whisper - and no token in sight.

So below I’ve got a list of ICO platforms to register for and watch like a hawk for a good opportunity.

Scroll down to see the launchpads worth watching. 👇️

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HOW TO GET RICH ON PRE-SALES (P2) 💰

MetaDAO

This one has huge mindshare right now after its raise for $UMBRA was 2,000% oversubscribed - literally $150M committed for a $750k raise. Why? Because the MetaDAO model is one of the most radical experiments we’ve seen in the space.

In short: it’s a futarchy-powered DeFi launchpad - meaning governance is done via prediction markets tied to token prices. This removes founders from the decision-making process, which has sparked fierce debate about the $META token itself.

The recent explosion in attention is partly thanks to Ansem and Jon Charbonneau, who proposed buying $6M of $META OTC to inject capital into the team.

Legion

Legion made waves recently by hosting a raise for Yield Basis, a Bitcoin DeFi protocol led by Curve founder Michael Egorov.

The platform is a bit tricky: you’ll need to earn Legion points to score a good spot or allocation with the big projects launching here. The score is largely based on platform activity, social media status, and onchain merit. I would recommend using your oldest EVM wallet to register.

Successful participants from Yield Basis are seemingly already up 7x.

Notable Raises: Almanak, Giza, Yield Basis.

Echo

This one is quite institutional and may precede many of the others on this list except Seedify. This is a semi-private ICO platform from Cobie himself (the guy who wrote the article above).

To access this one, you will need to sign up and then request an invite to various groups. I joined when I was trying to get into the Ethos round, which I missed in the end.

Notable raises: Ethos, Giza, Limitless and just dozens of other good ones.

Kaito

The “yapping” platform is so much more than the staple of InfoFi: they are a major data company, and recently rolled out their Capital Launchpad. Their ICOs are typically gated to Kaito stakers and/or top Yappers, and you will need to KYC to get in on them.

Their most recent raise for Limitless was 77x oversubscribed (and may have been more than that by the time it ended).

Notable raises: Limitless, Billions.

Notable mentions

I would say those are my top 4, but there are many other strong competitors:

Kraken: Yes, the exchange. These guys co-hosted the Yield Basis launch with Legion, which was their FIRST launchpad raise, and actually gave them a lot of street credit (imo). The FCFS sale sold out for that one, and it feels like they will have more coming up!
Station X: I’m still learning about this one, and the founder was nice enough to reach out to me to add me to the platform. I think they have big names coming, having recently announced that Gmoney was launching an investment group there.
Buidlpad: This is a last minute addition to the list, so apologies that I don’t know very much about the platform. They are raising for Momentum, the largest DeFi platform on $SUI which recently achieved over $500M TVL.
Seedify: A former giant of this part of the space, they recently overhauled their program and are re-raising for their token. Full rebuild and worth watching.
Native launches: Both $PUMP and $XPL (Plasma) hosted their public sales on their own websites, which sold out almost instantly. I wouldn’t put it past many brands to continue this practice and avoid paying a fee to the launchpads.